


The Dreams that Won't Come True

by lillpon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, hella angst, like seriously I almost cried writing this and I don't cry easily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:13:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20641994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillpon/pseuds/lillpon
Summary: Killian and Alice find a way to be together through their dreams... but it doesn't end up being what they expected.





	The Dreams that Won't Come True

"So, if I wear this talisman at the same time Alice wears hers..."

"Your dreams will be connected. And you'll both be in complete control of them, and the magic rules of your poisoned heart won't apply there."

* * *

He can't wait for the night to fall. Regina should have waited to give him the talisman later that day, he thinks. Though he is extremely grateful... it may not be a real cure, but it will allow father and daughter to reunite, at least in a way. And after all this time of separation, even that way is enough.

Night falls, and he goes to bed nearly shaking. He wonders if Alice is already asleep and waiting for him in her dream world. He wonders how many nights she'd spent in the tower, not being able to sleep because she hoped he would come back, fully cured and with a way for her to escape. Tears threaten to fill his eyes, but he closes them, focusing on how it will all be different now.

He barely understands when things change. When his bedroom turns into a campfire site, the smell of something sweet entering his nostrils, and the darkness dissipates with the light of a small fire, light that falls on his daughter's smile, which widens as she sees him.

"Hi, papa."

He expects to cry, as they both stand up and run to each other. She's so much bigger now, she fits differently in his arms... but she's there. She squeezes him, her laughs muffled as she buries her face in his shoulder, and he laughs too, but no tears come.

He doesn't pay it much attention. The dream lasts long enough for them to do everything they want; or, almost.

They go sailing. They go far back in his memories, and he has her meet his Mama and Liam. She shows him places she travelled to. They cook, and they sing, and they play.

And for one moment, he wishes she'd turn herself into a child, so he could play with her again the way they used to. Let herself grow in the dream, so he can watch her grow.

In the middle of them building sandcastles on a beach, she starts disappearing, becoming less and less visible. He panics.

"Starfish?" he says with wide eyes.

"It's all right, papa." She smiles. "I'm waking up. I'll see you next time."

And then she's gone.

He doesn't expect the burst of sobs and tears on his account when he wakes up. By all means, he had the most wonderful dream he'd had in all of his centuries. But still, he stays curled up in his bed, shaking from the shock of... "losing" her. He knows she's fine, she woke up happy in her bed, in her cabin, but the sight of her disappearing was too much for him, after their perfect moments in their dream.

He can't stop himself from running up, hastily dressing himself and taking a horse to her cabin. He needs to see her.

She's sitting on the porch, having tea with Robin. She jumps up when she sees him, starts running to him. As does he.

It's only a worried "Alice!" from Robin that makes both of them stop, realizing what they were about to do.

Suddenly, the talisman feels heavy around his neck. It's the only thing that connected them. It wasn't real.

_It wasn't real._

He swallows the sob that threatens to come out. "Good morning, Starfish."

She smiles, though he can see the sadness in her eyes. "Morning, papa."

"It was a beautiful dream."

"Yeah." She sniffles, and his chest constricts. "It was. We'll do it again? Tonight?"

"As you wish."

There's nothing really more to tell; they said so much in their dream, anyway. And she needs time with Robin, to probably share her beautiful memories of it... and so can he.

Henry and Regina listen patiently as he shares everything from their shared dream. They smile at his excitement, how he describes everything like it really happened, though it didn't.

_It didn't really happen._

He knows it's a bugging, insisting voice. But no matter. He can build enough memories with his Starfish in their dreams to silence it and make up for the lost time.

A week goes by, and just as Killian thinks they've exhausted all possible adventures they can go on, new and exciting scenarios are making themselves real through his daughter's wild, free imagination.

They're playing a game of chess. Alice is sitting upside down, her hair falling under her as she munches on some chocolate. Killian is sitting cross-legged across from her, toying with both of his hands as he contemplates his next move. And suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, Alice disappears completely.

"Alice!" he shouts, standing up and accidentally throwing the chess board over. But their lost game is of little importance. "Alice?! Where are you?!"

It feels like an eternity passes, and no sight of his daughter. The scene changes; the fire in the fireplace goes out, rain hammers the roof, the soft carpet under him disappears as he sits down on the hard, cold stone floor, holding his now bleeding arm against his chest. It's dark, and he's alone. He opens his mouth, trying to call for Alice again, but no sound comes out. He tries to scream, and it feels like the scream itself lodges in his throat, choking him.

Then a voice.

"Papa?"

He looks up, and it's like invisible hands hold him back as he tries to stand up and hug his daughter. She's faster than him, holding him and dragging him up with her.

"Alice..." he says, trembling.

"I'm here. A thunder rumbled very close to my cabin and woke me up. I'm here now."

To him, it's as if she didn't say anything. "Where did you go?"

"I told you, I- I woke up. Papa? Are you alright?"

It's all coming back; his hand is shaking, his stomach is turning, and his lips beg for another shot of rum. She's there, she's holding him, but he can't feel the touch, the warmth... the joy he'd expected.

He can't place what's going on; he's so confused, and the scream in his throat feels like a hard-swallowed bite that he can’t spit out... until Alice takes a step back. He looks at her as she hesitates, raises her arm, hesitates again, then finally slaps his cheek.

"Wake up!" she says. She grabs his shoulders and starts shaking him. "You have to wake up! Please, papa, wake up!"

He opens his eyes, disoriented by the sudden darkness. He's lying down on a bed... _his _bed. His room. In Queen Tiana's castle.

He breathes out shakily. It was a dream. No, it was a nightmare. He closes his fist on the talisman around his neck. Wasn't it supposed to help him control his dreams?

Too disturbed to sleep again, and hoping Alice won't wait for him in her dream, he lies awake. His hand, thankfully, isn't shaking, so he starts sketching random landscapes from memory on pieces of parchment to forget the feeling of craving a drink that his nightmare reminded him of. When the sun rises a couple of hours later, he goes to find Regina and ask her what went wrong.

"Your dream turned into a nightmare?"

"Alice woke up from a thunder, and she disappeared from my dream. It all changed then, and even after she came back, I couldn't control the dream to change into a good one. I could barely feel Alice's presence there."

"Were you conscious it was a dream?"

"What do you mean?"

She bites her lip, thinking. "Were you scared when Alice disappeared?"

"Of course I was! We were just sitting there and playing chess, and I suddenly saw my daughter disappear! What else could I have thought?"

"That you were in a dream and she was waking up."

Regina's words shake him. He had, indeed, forgotten about them having been in a dream at the time.

"You have to be conscious it's a dream, and not real, in order to be able to control it. I guess seeing her poof away scared you so much that it felt real, you lost control and lucidity in the dream, and your subconscious took over."

"So I- I just have to remember it's a dream? And things will be alright?"

Regina tries to smile, but he can see the sadness in it. "You have to remember it's not real. If you forget that, you may lose control again."

He takes a stroll to the nearby port a bit later, walking along the docks, needing to think.

He doesn't want to think of those adventures as _not real_. They both live them, and they do so together. They deserve it... at least Alice does. But it's harder than he thought.

If he thinks of those dreams as a reality, he'll lose control of them, giving his perpetual nightmares a way to ruin his only way of being with his daughter. And if he thinks of them as an illusion... what's the point in having them?

A dark thought hits him when he gets ready for bed that night; he can't remember some of the adventures they went on. Like any other dream, the memories dissolved, too weak and thin and unreal to stay.

He still wears the talisman that night, and a part of him is saddened to see Alice join him.

As if she's reading his mind, she makes their adventures much more timid; they go for a walk across a shore, they have a simple meal on a meadow, they play chess, they look at the stars. He hugs her and kisses her forehead and sings her to sleep. He doesn't have his other hand now.

The dream goes by smoothly, but he's not surprised to wake up crying the next morning.

It is not real. He didn't taste the teas of Wonderland with her, she didn't navigate by the stars with him... and she never met her grandmother and uncle. It wasn't the real them, only what he knew and remembered of them. And they never met her.

And even if they reconstruct a family dinner in their dreams, with Robin and Zelena and whomever else... the others will never remember it. And as much time as he wishes he could spend with her, it's only so much of her life Alice can devote to the dreams with her father.

He holds the talisman in his hand, contemplating how promising its magic was, only to prove it can't cover up for what they've lost.

He walks to Alice's cabin that evening, knowing and fearing at the same time that Alice will agree with his proposition to never use the talisman again.

"It's not real, Starfish. Using it can only remind us of what we can't have in real life." He doesn't have the heart to tell her how he almost fell into drinking again because of how hard that reminder hit.

She nods solemnly. "And forgetting that can lead to nightmares."

His heart breaks at her tone, at the way sadness hunches her shoulders forward. If only he could hold her, comfort her... "We can't use it again. Even once can make it addictive, and... it's hard to break off from something like that." He'd know.

"Just... one last time? Just to have enough time to... to say goodbye on our own terms."

One last time to hold her, to give her the feeling of having a father at her side and let that go peacefully.

It's only during that last dream that he realizes he hasn't cried in those dreams, from any emotion. All through those years, even when he'd lost hope, he had imagined breaking down and crying once he had the chance to hold his Starfish again, and how wouldn't he?

It only drives home harder how it's not real, it's not even the real him.

Still, he holds her close, they go sailing on the Jolly Roger, and she sleeps on his lap, as he sings his mother's lullaby, with the light of the stars and a full moon shining on them.

He looks at her as she faints slowly, wakefulness dragging her away, and it's like a part of his own heart is violently ripped off.

Too consumed in his sorrow, he lets the dream take over. The bright moon disappears and furious waves rip the Roger to pieces as Liam walks towards him and buries his cutlass in Killian's chest.

"How would you deserve a family?" Liam says. "You couldn't even protect what little you had. And for that, your own daughter suffers."

He doesn't even react when he feels a sea monster's tentacles pull him under. The water falls heavy on him, he can see the surface grow dimmer and dimmer.

It's only his eyes and cheeks that feel wet with tears as he wakes up.


End file.
